There comes a time when business look to scale up their business to increase their profit margins. Often this involves looking for markets beyond their borders. While this opens you up to expanded audiences and a bigger chance to make money. There are a lot of challenges involved, however, with actually shipping that need to be dealt with. A lot of this has to do with custom clearance in the Philippines. Here are the toughest issues that you might face when it comes to customs.
Variances
The first difficulty when it comes to customs boils down to the simple fact that different countries have their own set of customs rules that need to be complied with. There are some commonalities, true, but there are enough variances to make it tough to navigate around. This is important to note as non-compliance with even the smallest of stricture can mean your shipment being held indefinitely. You need to carefully customs laws as they apply to you in order to understand them better to navigate through.
Costing
Another difficulty arises from the first. Many times, people misjudge how much they need to spend to cover all the necessary tariffs and taxes upon arrival of the items in the target country. If we’re being honest, it is sometimes difficult to navigate pricing tables for necessary payments based on so many factors that make most people’s heads spin. Again, the key here is to very careful to study customs laws and fee tables of the country that you’re shipping to in order to better manage customs clearance in the Philippines.
Storage
When you are undergoing clearance, you have to consider where your items are being stored in the interim. Most people opt for storage with the customs bureau. While this is cost-effective, it can be of dubious dependability. And there’s also the risk of damage being done to the items while in that storage option. You can opt for external storage that has better security and is accredited by the customs department themselves. This might cost you some, but it is ultimately more worthwhile than other options.
Incidents
Finally, there are many things that can go wrong from the time your products leave your warehouse to the time they arrive at the customs office. The worst of these is, perhaps, when documents get lost along the way. At best, this will cause a temporary hassle that can delay the release of your products. At worst, this can mean a lot of expensive penalties that need to be paid and even further delay of the release of your items. Then there’s the issue of lost or damaged items and figuring out where and when they were lost—and who is ultimately responsible. All in all, the net result is a lot of headaches.
If these challenges can seem intimidating, well, they honestly are. Fortunately, there are freight forwarding companies that make all this so much easier. These experts in the field are dedicated to assisting you through the entire process of shipping your products out and making sure they get to their destination on time. Just make sure that you find a reliable freight forwarding company and none of these customs problems will bother you.
